Mitchell, Maria, 1818-1889
Name Entries
person
Mitchell, Maria, 1818-1889
Computed Name Heading
Name Components
Surname :
Mitchell
Forename :
Maria
Date :
1818-1889
eng
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Biographical History
Maria Mitchell, astronomer, was born on the island of Nantucket in 1818. Through her father, William Mitchell, she became interested in astronomy and assisted him in his observatory. In the late 1830s she was appointed librarian at the Nantucket Athenaeum, using its collection to educate herself while she worked with her father in the evenings. In 1847 she discovered a new comet, named for her, and was subsequently awarded a gold medal by the King of Denmark. A year later she became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston; in 1850 she was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
At the urging of Matthew Vassar, who was eager to add a woman of considerable stature to his first faculty, Maria Mitchell came to Vassar in 1865, where an observatory with a 12-inch telescope was built for her. The materials in the Vassar collection reflect her twenty-three years at Vassar, where she became one of the college's best and most well-known teachers. During this time, she continued her own research and publication. A founder of the Association for the Advancement of Women, she urged that women's ability in the sciences be recognized and that the scientific method be applied to the solution of social problems. In recognition of her breadth of outlook, Maria Mitchell was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1869, and in 1873 was made a vice-president of the American Social Science Association. Retiring from Vassar in 1888, she went to Lynn, Massachusetts, to work in the small observatory she had built there. She died the next year of "brain disease" and was buried in Nantucket.
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External Related CPF
https://viaf.org/viaf/19910479
https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50033397
https://id.loc.gov/authorities/n50033397
https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q239229
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Languages Used
eng
Latn
Subjects
Education
Americans On Europe
Antebellum Politics
Astronomers
Astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy
Comets
Cooper Union
Early National Politics
Solar eclipses
Europeans On America
Exchanges Of Publications
Geological Survey of the State of New Jersey
Geology
Girard College
Henry, Joseph, Personality, Etc
Lectures, Popular
Lighthouse
Light House Board
Meteorology
Meteorology
National Academy of Sciences
Natural history
Nautical almanacs
Science and technology
Science In America
Scientific organizations
Scientific publications
Smithsonian Board Of Regents
Smithsonian Building
Smithsonian Exchange
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Publications
Telegraph
United States Coast Survey
Women
Women astronomers
Women scientists
Women's colleges
Nationalities
Americans
Activities
Occupations
Astronomers
College teachers
Educators
Librarians
Women college teachers
Legal Statuses
Places
Lynn
MA, US
AssociatedPlace
Death
Nantucket
MA, US
AssociatedPlace
Birth
Convention Declarations
<conventionDeclaration><citation>VIAF</citation></conventionDeclaration>